The change of the investment climate in Greece, with the creation of a favorable environment for investment and the priority of the government in attracting foreign capital, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Minister of Economy and Finance, pointed out today at the conference “Green Deal Greece 2025“, organized by the Greek Technical Chamber of Greece (TEEE) in cooperation with economix.gr at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre.

In the panel on “Green and digital transformation, infrastructure and sustainable development at a critical juncture: Challenges and opportunities for investment and resilience”, moderated by Kathimerini Director Alexis Papachelas, was also attended by SEV President Spyros Theodoropoulos and TEEE President George Stasinos.

Asked to comment on whether the country is truly investment-friendly, Pierrakakis stressed the following:

“Greece is increasingly friendly. But we have to keep improving, and I think we realize this in every contact we have with foreign investors. The experience I had recently from my trip to the United States, in the context of the International Monetary Fund Meeting, was also an occasion to talk to many foreign investors. And now there is a general feeling that Greece is a very interesting place to invest.”

Greece’s image abroad has changed

Describing the mood of the meetings abroad, the minister cited the positive comments he heard about the country:

“We feel, when we talk about Greece, that the world has turned completely upside down from what was the case 10 years ago or certainly 15 years ago.”

As he said, “there is also a dividend of the obvious. That is, all those things that for decades didn’t happen, which today give you a lag. But, on the other hand, if you do some obvious things in terms of finding strategic investors, in terms of leveraging national assets, in terms of really being able to increase both foreign and domestic investment as much as you can, you’ll have a positive wind in your favor, especially when the winds of the global economy are acting negatively.”

“Certainly,” he added, “what I’m describing now is not the solution for everything. It is an example of the way of thinking about how we ought to move.”

Find partners for the Super Fund assets

“Another area where we can bring in more foreign investment is to find strategic investors for all those assets that are in both the Super Fund and other state structures that, over the years, have improved their governance. We have been over time, I would say, we have been phobic at the beginning, and lately we want to push even harder in bringing in partners.”

We don’t want 27 efficient markets, but a single market

“I will close with a sentence,” the minister then said. “The number one discussion at the moment in ECOFIN and the Eurogroup, as an aftermath of the Draghi reports, is what we call ‘cross-border mergers and acquisitions’. And, if we had to call it by a title, it would be that we don’t want 27 efficient markets, but we want a single market. ‘So, let’s not be afraid of cross-border mergers and acquisitions.”

“We also want Greek businesses to become more outward-looking and vice versa, so that we can reach the level we deserve, especially given that the Recovery Fund is coming to an end.

Because one piece of fair comment that one can make, and which has been made by SEV, is: “After the Recovery Fund, what?” Well, after the Recovery Fund, we need a private catalyst, with us as the leverage, so that more and more investment can be made in this sector.”

“I think the uncertainty certainly provides opportunities. The energy sector, and what we will have to discuss in the next few days in Athens, about the vertical corridor, about LNG, but also more generally about energy and the role that our country can play in Europe, are geostrategically upgrading Greece. We must seize this opportunity and move as quickly as possible and with a completely open mind.”

“I will tell you that these opportunities that I was describing before, in all these arrangements that I have been involved in so far, are very many, and I think there are things that are what we call – you said quick wins, I will say low-hanging fruits – that is, things that are very easily achievable if you do them.”

There are some very, very unprecedented strategic partnerships and strategic collaborations, as well as strategic investments, in organizations in which the Greek public sector is involved and more broadly in our country, which we should see transmuted over the next 12 months precisely in the spirit of cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

“Right now the talk across Europe is to have the Savings and Investment Union, but the bottom line, which is these cross-border mergers, we don’t see them translating into the field with such speed, and here Greece is an interesting good example.”

“I recall specifically that we are discussing the property of foundations in Greece and small foundations, for example, from the first memorandum, I recall an article that we don’t know how many 19th-century foundations have real estate. We will bring a law to Parliament, 15 years late, which will do the valuation, which will also create a new institution, which will also take away the school legacies, so that all this can come to the surface, precisely in the spirit of cross-border mergers and acquisitions.”

“I think we can take the three examples I mentioned before (Unicredit -Alpha Bank, Euronext proposal for EFAE, Credia Bank in Malta ), we can have done ten of them by the elections, and I would say we will be judged by when we can do it, and not only in the financial sector, and not only in the financial sector, and not only in other sectors. I just close with this message. Everything, but everything, is absolutely achievable.

If Greece at the moment internationally, apart from the problems that we have in the domestic dialogue, what is recorded, and most of them are correct when they are recorded, if in the international public dialogue Greece is a case study, it is an example because it has overcome all these difficulties that we had in the previous decade, it can overcome them. So it is all a question of will and speed. We will be judged on this.”